Submit list of anti-hunger measures

SENATOR Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday asked Malacañang to submit a list of legislative priorities aimed at eradicating poverty and expand social services so that Congress can act on them immediately to reduce the number of hungry families in the country.

Marcos, a member of the Senate committee on agriculture and food, noted that while recent surveys showed a decrease in the number of families experiencing involuntary hunger this year, the government must come up with more effective means to address the hunger problem.

The senator was referring to the survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations (SWS) on hunger showing a minimal drop in the number of families that experienced hunger in the second quarter of 2015 — 12.7 percent from 13.5 percent in the first quarter.

The figure translates to about 2.8 million families.

According to the pollster, it was the lowest figure posted since May 2005 when hunger incidence was at 12 percent.

Marcos noted that while the survey would show that the government has done significant actions to lessen the number of hunger families, more needs to be done because 2.8 million families is still a big number.

“We want to know from Malacañang what measures we need to approve to support its programs against hunger. The drop in the number of hungry families is already encouraging and we should sustain it,” the senator said.

“We, the senators, and also the congressmen, are more than willing to provide the needed anti-poverty laws that give jobs and livelihood, send children to school, improve health care, provide decent shelters, and other pro-poor measures,” Marcos added.

Senator Marcos need not ask Malacanang what measures to take to provide support to that never-ending poverty in the country. All they need to do (senators and congressmen) is to give back the millions they stole from government/people. I’m pretty sure this would, at least, help alleviate hunger among millions of our poor countrymen.